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UK Security Minister Ben Wallace said Russia was responsible for nerve poisonings in Wiltshire and called on Moscow to help the British authorities to keep the British safe.
To find out how a British couple was left seriously ill by the novichok neurological agent, the same military-grade poison that nearly killed the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, there at four months
. Responsible, Wallace said: "Based on the evidence we had at the time of the Skripal attack, the knowledge that they had developed novichok, they had been exploring assassination programs in the past, they had motives, form and declared policy, we still assert to a very high assurance that the Russian state was behind the original attack.
"The working hypothesis would be that 39 they are victims of the consequences of the previous attack or other thing b but not that they were directly targeted. It could change. "
Speaking on the Radio 4's Today program, Wallace said:" This [the Skripal incident] was a brazen and reckless attack in the heart of a very peaceful part of the United Kingdom . This is part of the anger I feel in the Russian state. They chose to use a very, very toxic, very dangerous weapon. Novichok in the smallest form can hurt thousands of people. "
He continued:" The Russian state could correct this bad right. They could tell us what happened, what they did and fill in some of the important gaps that we are trying to fill. We said that they can come and tell us what happened. I'm waiting for phone call from the Russian state. The offer is there. "
Wallace admitted that he could not be absolutely sure that the people of Salisbury and the surrounding area were safe." Until we know everything and identify people if people are involved until we can get to a place where we know a lot more, our insurance levels will remain low risk but not at zero risk. "
Neil Basu announced Wednesday evening that Chemical warfare scientists at the Porton Down Laboratory had established that Novichok had caused the collapse of Dawn Sturgess, 44, of Salisbury, and Charlie Rowley, 45, of Amesbury
They got sick at home on Saturday, eight miles (12km) from Sergei Skripal's home in Salisbury. They were attacked in March with Novichok, which, according to the police, was smeared on his front door.
Initially, the police thought the drugs had caused Sturgess and Rowley's serious illness. Basu said investigators and scientists did not know how the British couple had been exposed to the nerve agent. Paramedics were first called to a house on Muggleton Road in Amesbury at 10:15 am Saturday after the collapse of Sturgess. Five hours later Rowley fell ill.
They were taken to Salisbury District Hospital, where the Skripals were also treated
Basu, Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who heads the national counterterrorism network, said: "From the evaluation Initially, it was thought that both patients became ill after using drugs from a potentially contaminated lot.However … because of concerns about the symptoms that the man and woman were having, samples of the two patients were sent to the Porton Down laboratory for analysis
Novichok refers to a group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s 80 to escape international restrictions on guns Like other neurotoxic agents, they are organophosphorus compounds, but the chemicals used to make them and their structures fi are considered classified in the United Kingdom, the United States and in other countries.
The most potent novichok substances are considered more deadly than VX, the deadliest familiar neurological agents, which include sarin, tabun and soman.
While novichok agents function in the same way, massively stimulating muscles and glands, a chemical weapons expert stated that the agents did not degrade rapidly in the environment and had additional toxicity that was not well understood. The treatment for novichok exposure would be the same as for other nerve agents, namely atropine, diazepam and potentially the drugs called oximes.
The chemical structures of Novichok agents were made public in 2008 by Vil Mirzayanov, a former Russian scientist living in United States, but the structures have never been publicly confirmed. It is thought that they can be made in various forms, including in the form of dusty aerosols
Novichoks are known as binary agents because they only become lethal after mixing two components otherwise. harmless. According to Mirzayanov, they are 10 to 100 times more toxic than conventional neurotoxic agents.
While the laboratories used for police chemical weapons incidents have databases on nerve agents, few Russians would have complete details about novichok compounds. the chemicals needed to make them
"Following the detailed analysis of these samples, we can confirm that both the man and the woman were exposed to the Novichok neurological agent, which was identified as the same neurotoxic agent that contaminates both Yulia and Sergei Skripal. "
Basu said Wednesday evening that no one else had complained of the symptoms associated with novichok poisoning. A senior government source told the Press Association that there was cross contamination of the same batch of neurotoxic agent involved in the "reckless" attack of Salisbury, by opposition to a secondary attack.
"They [the authorities] were never able to verify the object used to deposit the novichok and it is possible that the couple came into contact with this article," the source said.
It is understood that investigators are working on a theory that the pair has come into contact with the substance. part of downtown Salisbury that was outside the original cleaning area
Basu said that there was nothing in the Sturgess or Rowley circles that would suggest that They would be the target of a deliberate attack; they have no connection with intelligence or security communities.
Basu said that it would be up to the scientists in Porton Down to determine if the British couple had been poisoned by the same lot of novichok that used against the Skripals. [19659002] He said, "I must say that we are not able to say whether the nerve agent came from the same lot that the Skripals were exposed to." The possibility that these two investigations may be linked is clearly a survey trail for us. "
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